Colonel James Wallace of
Auchans
by
A.I.B. Stewart C.B.E.,
B.L.
The most outstanding of the Lowland Lairds who came to Kintyre in the seventeenth century was, undoubtedly, James Wallace. The son of Matthew Wallace of Auchans, a cadet branch of the Elderslie family, he succeeded about 1641.
He matriculated at Glasgow University in 1627 and as there is no trace of graduation, he probably became a professional soldier shortly thereafter. He disposed of his family estates to the Earl of Dundonald and in 1642 he sailed for Ireland as a Captain in a regiment raised by the Marquis of Argyll to suppress the Irish Rebellion. Among his brother officers was Major James Turner, who was to be present at Dunaverty and whom, in later years, he would take prisoner.
He was recalled to Scotland in 1645 to oppose Monrose and was taken prisoner at Kilsyth. He was back in Ireland in 1647 and was appointed Governor of Belfast, of which post he was deprived in June 1649, when he married a Miss Edmonstone of Ballycarry, near Carrickfergus, and prepared to settle down there.
However, in August, 1649, the Scots Committee of Estates formed a regiment of 400 foot in six companies, with a troop of 40 horse recruited largely from Scots refugees from Ireland. He fought with his regiment against Cromwell at Dunbar on 2nd September, 1650, and was one of the 10,000 prisoners taken on that dismal day for Scottish Arms.
The Scots Parliament on 3rd July, 1650, had declared the Irish companies to be a lifeguard of foot with Lord Lorne its Colonel, and James Wallace its Lieutenant Colonel, and from this time it has long been maintained that Wallace was the first Lieutenant Colonel of the Scots Guards and indeed that regiment was born in 1639 when Argyle raised the force with which Wallace crossed to Ireland in 1642.
But David Stevenson has recently argued most persuasively, that there was no historical connection between the Regiment of Foot Guards raised by Charles II in 1661-2 and Lorne's Regiment of 1650, and none between the Irish companies of 1649/50 and the regiment of 1639/42.
After Dunbar, Lorne pleaded for an appointment for Wallace, "to some post of excise or maintenance forth of the Shire of Ayr" as a reward for his services. It may well be that he had some such post in Campbeltown and that it was then he came to live here. Strangely enough there is no record of his ever having a tack or lease of a Kintyre farm.
He lived quietly till the time of the Pentland rising. He was an elder of the Lowland congregation and there are still many in the town and countryside whose forebears would have seen him at kirk on Sunday. At a Provincial Assembly of Argyll held at Inveraray in May 1650, the Marquis of Argyll stated that he had personally heard Lt. Col. Wallace state that, at a presbyterial diet in Dunoon, all the ministers were drunk. When the Marquis asked whom he knew or actually saw in that condition he "confessed that he knew none of them in particular, neither saw any of them save Mr. Colin McLachlan who was making a laughter and scorn of the people that were beastly drunk and spewing." The Assembly, finding that the presbytery alleged this to be a false calumny and slander, ordained them to prosecute legally their own vindication from so foul an aspersion by the next Synod otherwise they would be held guilty.
The matter was raised again in May 1652 when the indignant Presbytery of Dunoon complained that the matter had been mentioned at the General Assembly in Edinburgh in 1650, and had not yet been settled. The Synod appointed a Commission to try the matter and summoned Lt. Col. Wallace to attend. But at the Synod meeting in October 1652, it was decided "considring Leivtennant Colonnel Wallace because of his present casse cannot safely compeir for cleering the scandal laid be him upon the presbetrie of Cowall doth defer the said matter to a mor fit tym wherein the said leivtennant Collonel may safely compeir."
Nothing further seems to have happened and James Wallace is noted as a leading elder in the Lowland Congregation present at Synod in Inveraray on 25th May, 1659.
The restoration of Charles II in 1660 was acclaimed by the Scottish people, and he was welcomed by the Covenanters as their covenanted King. They were soon to be disillusioned when Episcopacy was restored and 271 ministers, mainly in the west of Scotland, were turned out for refusing to accept the authority of the Bishops. There were stirrings in the south west and, when in 1665 it became known that overtures had been made by disaffected Covenanters to the Dutch, who were at war with England, immediate action was taken to round up ringleaders.The Earl of Lauderdale, High Commissioner in Scotland, ordered Argyll to arrest Wallace, his old second-in-command. Ralston and Halkett were arrested and spent two years in Dumbarton Castle, but Wallace escaped.
According to Willcock, his escape had momentous consequences for it was this officer who welded a disorderly mob of malcontents into a military engine which shook the Government of Scotland.
On 13th November 1666 four soldiers had apprehended a man in Dalry in Galloway for non-attendance at Church and were threatening him with torture by fire when he was rescued by a local laird McLellan of Barscoke. The insurrection spread and in no time our old friend Sir James Turner, the principal military officer in the district found himself a prisoner of the Covenanters who had grown to a band of about 150. They set off for Ayr and when they reached there had grown to 700 and had been joined by Colonel Wallace.
General Tom Dalyell of the Binns, Commander-in-Chief, was ordered to Glasgow to pursue the rebels who meantime set out for Edinburgh hoping to recruit Clydesdale on the way. The weather was foul and as the two little armies crossed Scotland this bore most heavily on the ill equipped and ill fed insurgents; At Lanark Wallace's force was about 1100 horse and foot but after proceeding via Bathgate to Colinton to the south of the capital it had been reduced to about 900. Here an approach was made Through Dalyell to the Privy Council to be allowed to petition for relief from "the intolerable insolencies of the prelates and their insupportable oppressions." Archbishop Sharp told Dalyell that all they could expect was that on laying down their arms they might be allowed to petition for mercy.
By this time the insurgents realised they had no
hope of military success and they set out to cross the Pentlands into Teviotdale
with a view to dispersing. General Dalyell moved from Currie to intercept
which he did at Rullion Green a little to the north of Penicuik. He had about
2000 infantry and 600 horse all well fed and well armed professionals. Colonel
Wallace's band must have known despair as they sang the 74th Psalm before
taking up their positions:
"Oh God, why hast thou cast us off
Is it for ever more
Against thy pasture sheep why doth
Thine anger smoke so sore?"
Such was Colonel Wallace's skill as a commander in posting his troops and
such was their bravery that they held out for several hours although outnumbered
three to one by better armed and equipped regular troops. But when darkness
fell on 28th November some fifty of Wallace's troops lay dead and eighty
had been taken prisoner. Sir James Turner escaped in the melee but afterwards
spoke in warm terms of his erstwhile captor.
In an official report it was stated "the army say they never saw men fight more gallantly than the rebels nor endure more, The General was forced to use stratagem to defeat them. Wallace in his story of the battle tells how the dead were stripped of their clothes "by the soldiers and barbarians of Lothian as if the victory had been gotten over Turks."
Colonel Wallace escaped to Ayrshire and thence to
Ireland. He was condemned to death and his estate forfeited and this was
ratified by Parliament on 15th December 1669. He managed to reach Holland
and after much wandering to avoid his enemies, he settled in Rotterdam where
he became an elder in the Scots kirk and where he died in 1678, never dreaming
that his old comrade and present adversary, Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl
of Argyll would follow him into exile and would lead an equally unsuccessful
rising in the Presbyterian cause in 1685. Meantime Argyll was most anxious
to ingratiate himself with the Government and only five days after the battle
wrote on 3rd December 1666 from his yacht lying in Tarbert that he had raised
1500 men and had garrisoned the castles of Saddell and Skipness. He suggested
he should take into custody the Colonel's son, William Wallace, who was Tacksman
of Ballimeanach. This young man had been absent from Kintyre during the troubles
but was able to prove his innocence. He was directed to go to Edinburgh,
however, to explain himself. When he reached Glasgow a friend advised him
that notwithstanding his inno cence he would suffer torture by the barbaric
boot in an attempt to extract information from him and heeding this advice
he returned to Kintyre and thence followed his father to Ireland.Argyll sent
a soothing message to Mrs. Wallace at Ballimeanach saying that he was sure
the Government would forgive William and then set spies on her in the hope
that she would pass on the message and so disclose the whereabouts of her
husband and his father. This stratagem failed and neither was taken William
had two sons James and John from whom it is believed the present Kintyre
Wallaces are descended. One of the earliest graves in Kilkerran is that of
John Wallace who died on 14th February 1686 aged 56. He could hardly have
been the Colonel's son but may have been a younger brother. Gavin and William
Wallace in Kildavie1 John Wallace in Brecklet, John Wallace in Kilwhipnach
and William Wallace in Campbeltown were rebels with the Earl of Argyll in
1685. Hew Walash (sic) in Campbeltown John Wallace in Drum, William and Gavin
in Kildavie and John Wallace in Killeonan are listed as fencible men in 1692.
A branch of the family apparently emigrated to New Zealand and Robert (1665)
and Archibald and James (both 1883) are shown as members of the Kintyre
Club.
SOURCES:
Kintyre in the 17th Century
Andrew McKerral
A Scots Earl
John Willcock
Commons of Argyll
Duncan McTavish
Dictionary of National Biography
Kintyre Club Memorial 1889
Minutes of Synod of Argyll
Scottish History Society
The Myth of the Founding of The Scots Guards
David Stevenson
Scottish Historical Review LV1.1.p.114.
Page 3: A Kintyre "Trysting Brooch".
Page 4: A Voyage to New Zealand